A Light Dawns in Europe

America-bashing is as old as America itself.  The Tories did it then.  Michael Moore does it now.  Over the last two weeks, a recent UN conference on "climate change" regaled us with the same jealously-ridden blather that we have come to expect.

This particular conference received more press than most, even in the U.S., but the correspondence was worldwide: from "US leads 'wrecking crew' at Bali" to outrageous accusations like "Bali Exposes US, Canada And Australian Climate Racism, Climate Terrorism, Climate Criminals And Climate Genocide," the United States has been pelted with fury by the rest of the world.

And this haranguing appears to have had the desired effect.  According to CNN-Money,

Developing countries, such as China and India, as well as developed countries like the United States, will face a new level of accountability and pressure to reduce emissions under the next global climate-change pact. For the first time in the history of climate change talks, the United States has come to the table collaborative in negotiating a viable solution.

Apparently, this was such a shocking event that there are even theories that the American negotiators disobeyed Bush's orders to them.

Insiders in Washington are speculating that the US delegation to the U.N. climate talks in Bali went against the wishes of the Bush Administration as negotiations drew to a close last weekend.

So, perhaps, the United States gets sucked into the global warming morass.

We could dwell on the obvious hypocrisy of placing the conference at an over-the-top luxurious resort about a million miles from anywhere else, thereby resulting in millions of tons of carbon emissions by delegates jetting first-class to get there.  Or, we could consider the news that China now exceeds the United States in carbon output, yet comes in for a fraction of the opprobrium.

But, really, the most telling response can be found right in the heart of the global-warming-hysteria movement, Europe itself.  We have here a quote from the German head of government:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has opposed European Union (EU) plans to cut pollution from new cars, saying it was "not economically favourable".

Hmm.  Ya think?  It may have taken a while, but finally, finally, somebody in Europe has realized what's crystal clear to anyone with a brain: reducing carbon emissions destroys your economy.

Carbon emissions are almost directly linked to the strength of your economy.  If your economy is doing great, emissions go up - because you are consuming more energy, and producing more useful goods to make people's lives better.  If you are in a recession and everyone is starving, as happened in Eastern Europe and Russia in the early 90s, your pollution of all types will fall, because nobody can afford to use any energy or do any polluting.

Germany has rightly realized that this is not what the German people want.  Sure, they'd like clean air and green trees, and so on - but not at the cost of everything else they enjoy.  And they are certain that the air will still be clear and the trees green notwithstanding their primal, gluttonous, non-EU-blessed ways.

Let us hope that this light will spread across Europe, and across the world, as voters take a long hard look at the facts about what they're being asked to sacrifice, and for what result.